Memento Mori
by SimDawg
Summary: It’s six years after the Horcruxes were gathered and Voldemort was killed. Aurors Harry and Ron have lost touch with everyone they once knew in school while working for the Ministry, however, one mission will change all that, as they find themselves thrus


Prologue

Prologue

He was bleeding. It hurt. Not the bleeding itself, but the cut. His left arm hung rather limply from his side, and his other arm held his wand. He felt his shadow on his left, with the child. Usually he would be the follower, the sidekick guarding his shadow's back, however, tonight necessity had dictated otherwise. Both of them walked the cobblestone streets, moving slowly and deliberately, they couldn't risk being seen as out of the ordinary. The house they came up to was set into a large marble building that looked quite old. He would have said it was run down, then he remembered his old home back in England, and realized that he really had no place from which to cast judgments. Not that he would want to, on this particular house. Or any house. He wasn't the type to judge at all, really. Unless someone was a git.

The door was wooden, and inexpertly varnished, with a small brass latch and handle. He glanced left and right out of habit, even though he felt quite secure, then knocked twice, loudly. He had to remember to put on a good face when she opened the door. He didn't want to start things off badly, they'd probably turn that way quickly enough, and as much as he didn't want to admit it, he and his partner needed some assistance tonight. He turned around to look at the small child he and his partner risked their lives to kid…retrieve. If he thought about it like that he might lose his resolve. She was small, almost mousy, with wavy brown hair and a pinched nose, but her eyes were large and bright blue. She was remarkably calm, considering she had just been spirited away from her home by two strangers, and she stared back, her head tilted slightly to one side like some Labrador observing a new owner. He couldn't help but grin at her resilience, and her inquisitiveness. In fact, it seemed quite strange that this child would end up at this door. As if summoned by his thoughts, the door opened, and he turned back around just in time to see the jaw of a young woman drop in surprise. 'Ron!' she breathed.

He gave her the most genuine, fake grin he had in him.

"Hello, Hermione."

_Earlier that night…_

"And Jenkins makes a superb play! Morgan drops the Quaffle while rolling over, and it's the Cannons going the other way. I'll tell you, Mort, I don't think we've seen a hit like that from the orange and black since last century."

"Quite a play by Jenkins, who seems to be plagued by a bad shoulder since that blatching foul about sixteen minutes in. Although, don't get your hopes up, it's 110-40 in favor of Holyhead, and I don't see that changing any time soon." The announcer's smirk seemed to come through the wireless with a life of it's own. Ron grabbed a sock that was lying on the back of his chair and threw it at the radio.

"Shut up, you biased, slack-jawed…" Harry winced at the next few words that came out of Ron's mouth, and tried to listen to the rest of the game over his diatribe, which was quite hard since he was really intrigued by the string of nouns that seemed, oddly enough, grammatically correct.

"You know, you don't need to curse the announcer in complete sentences." Harry put his head in his hand and gazed disinterestedly at his flat mate. No matter how many times they tried to get through a full game, no matter how many times he's heard the same thing before, Ron could never seem to adjust to the announcer's jabs at his team.

"Yeah, well, that's more than he can do, that arrogant git. They're rebuilding! Give them a few years, they'll be back in the thick of it."

"And you'd never know." Ron blinked at Harry, 'You would have missed all the games shouting at the wireless."

'Fine, fine, go ahead and listen to the game, I'll sit here in silence while my team is picked apart by a baboon with-"

"I think I heard an owl." Ron stopped talking immediately and watched in silence as Harry got up from his place on the couch and walked through to the kitchen window. Outside, pecking against the glass was a small tawny owl with a black envelope tied to it's leg. Harry figured it would be from the Ministry. No one else sent post at this hour. He untied the letter.

"Revelare." He tapped the note with his wand, and white lettering appeared, in stark relief to the black parchment.

Black Night

222 Right Way

Dudleigh, London

Harry chuckled at the envelope. Inside was the same white on black.

_Retrieval tonight. Apparation point seven._

"We're on." He called through the doorway.

Chapter 1

"What? How'd you-? When'd you get here?" Ron gave Hermione a perfunctory one-armed hug with this wand arm before she noticed movement behind him. "Who's that?" Hermione peeked around Ron's shoulder, and he glanced back at Harry again, who had a strange sort of crooked smirk on his face that Ron hadn't seen in a very long time.

"That's what's his name with the scar. You know, from school." Ron heard Hermione squeal and push past him, throwing herself around Harry's neck. Ron inwardly winced as she brushed his arm, but felt quite confident he had kept any reaction off his face until he saw Harry's eyebrows contract. He at once recognized that Harry had both seen the pain, and his effort to keep it to himself. So much for trying to keep things quiet.

Hermione finally decided to push herself off Harry, and she gave him a quick peck on the cheek, and knelt down, meeting their tagalong at eye level. "Hello there, I'm Hermione. What's your name?" The little girl with the big blue eyes was completely silent, and Hermione looked back at Ron questioningly. Ron shrugged. He'd only known the kid for half an hour, maybe she was a mute. Or deaf. "What's her name, Ron?"

Ron blinked, and shifted his weight. "Uh, well, you see…" He trailed off uncertainly.

"Can we come in, Hermione?" Harry touched her shoulder. Her posture changed instantly. She looked first at Ron, then Harry, noticing their torn robes, and their wands still held in their hands.

"Of course, come on." She stood in order to lead them through the door, her flat was three rooms, with a separate bedroom and kitchen. They made their way to the couch, and Harry handed the girl off to Hermione, who was busy asking her if she was hungry, thirsty, tired, or any number of different things. Ron thought it was a bit uncalled for, really. It's probably best to let sleeping dragons lie. Or, in this particular case, silent children. He took a step closer to Harry while Hermione was busy.

"Let's go, if we don't do this now we'll have to explain everything." Harry turned, wide eyed.

"That's the idea, Ron. Should we just Apparate away and leave Hermione stuck with the kid? Nice way to get reacquainted, you think? We could have shoved her in a basket and left a note-"

"Okay, okay, keep your voice down. I didn't mean it like that." Ron anxiously glanced in Hermione's direction, and much to his displeasure she wore a look of concentration and curiosity, even while constructing a makeshift bed on the couch. He took another step and lowered his voice again. "I'm just saying we can't tell her about the details."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You're acting strange."

"What?"

"You're acting strange, Ron. Have I just been skiving off the last five years? Am I going to go spilling Ministry secrets?"

"I just thought, you know, it's Hermione. I'm just saying we can't break policy, even for her."

"If you're so concerned about policy, I don't think they taught us about dropping off our hostage during training."

"Hey! Will you get off my back? I'm just saying we can't-"

"I know what you're saying, Ron. Give it a rest," said Harry wearily. Ron turned away, quite put out. He just didn't want their past relationships effecting their work. They shouldn't be making exceptions, is all.

As soon as Hermione had finished making the bed, she and Harry both set about trying to get the child to lie down. Ron walked through to the kitchen, and waved his wand in order to magic up a glass of water for himself. It'd been a long night. A long night that led him to Hermione's flat in the middle of another country with a sliced arm and a kid that needed babysitting. All in all, not a particularly impressive mission accomplished. He took a sip. It just felt awkward. It'd been two years since they last spoke. It was awkward and wrong, to come here after all that and just drop off what was supposed to be their responsibility. Harry was right, too, though. He certainly wasn't about to take that little girl off to Merlin knows where. A rock and a hard place, if ever he'd seen one.

Hermione walked in, followed closely by Harry.

"Hey, mate, you should get the arm of yours worked on before we leave." Ron nodded at Harry and started working his way out of the top of his robes. He heard Hermione tut from under the fabric, and then, "No, Hermione!" Before a blazing pain shot through his shoulder, causing him to grunt, and his arm to go completely numb.

"Bloody hell, Hermione, was that necessary?" He struggled out of the rest of his clothes, made much harder by the lack of one arm.

"Ron, what happened? I don't understand, I've done that charm dozens of times. Are you alright?" She took a step closer, looking at him in concern.

"It's over, it's fine. What's done is done." He couldn't blame her for trying to help, but his stomach had dropped a few feet. Getting out of this was going to be a lot harder with only one working arm. He sat down on the kitchen table and pulled out a small box from inside a pocket. A number of different vials filled the inside, and after pulling aside a flap he reached the poultice filled with murtlap. He muttered a quick heating spell and slapped it on his arm.

"Here, let me help." Hermione left, and returned almost immediately with a length of bandage which she used to secure it to his arm. He was particularly aware of her at his side, sitting with him like no time at all had passed. He wondered if she was really upset about everything that had happened. She didn't seem too bothered now.

"Will you two please tell me what's going on? And why my healing charm didn't work?" Ron was startled out of his own thoughts, and turned to look at her. Hermione looked exasperated, but her eyes lingered on Ron's arm.

"It's an assignment, Hermione. We just need you to look after the child."

"I, what? Look after her? While you do what?"

"While we find a way out of the country. Listen, I can't tell you much, but our apparation back to England is being blocked by the Italian 'Ministero'. We need to stay out of sight until they can open up a new point covertly, and we can't take a child with us when we're…you know." Clearly Hermione didn't, because she looked at him with a quirked eyebrow, and folded her arms over her chest. He looked at Harry. It was his idea, after all, he shouldn't be here feeling weird, trying to explain enough without explaining too much.

"It's called escape and evade, Hermione. You don't usually take children along. We will if we have to." Harry paused, looking uncomfortable. "It's not exactly within policy, what we're doing, you see, letting her go. But the alternative isn't good. And if we can avoid having to do that to her, well, it'd just be better. It's the right choice. If you agree."

Hermione's expression softened as Harry spoke. "Oh, of course I agree, Harry, you know that. I'm just worried, and I want to know what you're doing. It's been so long."

Ron felt guilty. "Yeah, well, about that…you know. It wasn't something we planned, just, people were off doing their things, and you had left-"

"We're sorry, Hermione." Harry moved to give her a hug, and she reciprocated. Bloody hell. Why didn't it ever work like that with him? Hermione kept looking at Ron the entire time she was hugging Harry. It started to make him feel awkward again, and he decided to work his way back into his clothes while both of them were distracted with all the hugging.

"What happened to your arm, Ron?"

"Well, there was this dark wizard, you see." Ron tried to sound lighthearted. He was sure Hermione would worry more if he told her everything.

"No, I mean what did I do to your arm? It was just a healing charm."

"Oh, that. Well, some of the curses we come up against are modified to stop charms. It's something new. Kept us from healing in the field, until we started carrying these." He tapped his kit, which was tucked back in an inner pocket. "It stops charms, but potions and herbs still work."

"And what happens when you use charms?"

"Well, it usually, you know, aggravates the injury." He wasn't about to tell her that people had died from trying to heal their own injuries. She'd gasp and wring her hands, and it would all be for nothing, except to make her feel unreasonably guilty. What he really wanted to do was leave, and get back to what he knew best. This dancing around the subject wasn't his thing.

"Oh, Ron, I should have thought-I was just trying to help."

"I know, don't worry too much, eh? You couldn't have known. We, er, should be on our way, though. If we stay here too long, they might pick up on something." Hermione nodded.

"How long will all this be?"

"We'll be back as soon as we can. If something changes, we'll send an owl. You remember how they work, right?" Harry was grinning openly, now.

"I think I can recall, yes." Hermione gave him another hug, smiling herself.

"Good luck, Ron. Be careful."

Ron and Harry made their way back through the living room, with their captive sleeping soundly on the couch. As they walked out the door, Ron turned to see Hermione give him a quick wave, before she turned out the stoop light and went back inside. Harry and Ron walked along quietly for a little while, slowly making their way out of town.

"What the heck was that about?" Harry's voice abruptly broke the silence, and he had that smirk on his face again. Like he knew something Ron didn't. Ron wasn't too happy when he saw that face.

"Harry, there's quite a few things I've done that could fit that statement."

"I mean back there. You couldn't fit together a complete sentence, you kept fidgeting. You almost ran out of the room at one point. I was looking around for Fleur the first ten minutes."

"I was thirsty! And it was awkward, Harry!" Ron was perhaps overly disgruntled at the mention of Fleur's name. "We haven't seen her in two years. It was awkward and weird." Ron's voice had risen, and he glared at Harry. Why did he make him go through that to begin with? They should have just stuck to policy.

"Awkward?" Harry looked at Ron with an unreadable expression. "It was just Hermione."

Ron stiffened. He glanced at Harry surreptitiously.

"Right. Just Hermione."


End file.
